Why this feeling of sadness now? I think I’ll sit with it a while, after all it cannot hurt to understand the feeling if it manifests itself to me. If I ignore it and send it away will it be hurt and think that it cannot come again to remind me of something I have not yet forgotten? Breathe deeply, stare at the yellow walls and the sunlight reflecting through the window at the foot of the stairs. It doesn’t feel any better, but then why should it? You’ve only been thinking about the feeling for a few seconds. Is that all the time that you can spare for this feeling when it so urgently wants to be felt? Don’t you owe it to yourself to sit and engage with it, have a conversation with it, listen to what it has to say?

A small knot in the pit of your stomach. A small pressure to the right side of your head, just under your ear. Tingling in the feet and curiosity around the base of your neck and furrowed forehead. Lips pursed as if to kiss and greet the feeling that has chosen this moment to visit, when you really weren’t expecting visitors today. Invite the feeling to stay and find out what it has to say. Don’t be cold and formal, treat it like a long lost friend. Connect with it and let it know that it is important, that it is welcome and that although you have other things to do, this feeling has priority right now. It relaxes and reclines and something shifts within you.

You turn your head and gaze from the foot of the stairs to the open window where the breeze softly caresses your skin, notice too that the trees are waving at you, as the cool air touches their leaves. That the clouds in the sky floating on by suggest softness, cushioning your thoughts. Having gazed a while, seconds, minutes – who knows, you glance away, noticing the feeling has crept away. You smile and acknowledge the gift your visitor brought today.

Are secrets really secrets? How long can a secret remain a secret? Doesn’t everything come to light at some point?

Secrets

Long before I knew my mind, you took away my right to know my mind, and in so doing took the very essence of me, that part of me which struggles now to know who I am; the real me. You came and with your honeyed words drew me into a maelstrom of deceit. I felt confused, but could not fight you because you were bigger than me in every sense of the word. Physically, you were bigger. Mentally you were bigger. Emotionally you were bigger. You were simply too big for me and I was too small. What did you see that day you came to me, smiling, with evil in your heart, evil on your mind, evil guiding your hands?

You believed your secret was safe with me. But you could not be more wrong. Oh how you gloried in your misdeeds and how you luxuriated in the wrongs of someone with a secret. You laughed mockingly at the small soul who kept your secret safe within her heart, never fearing that she could one day part with the sorrow that secret held for her. That secret which tore her dreams to shreds, prevented the seeds of miracles to unfold. The secret which stopped her from being bold and taking hold of all that was rightfully hers.

Ah but time has passed and with that passing has come the desire to cast aside the mire in which she passed her time, for she could not call it living. It was a poor substitute. The secret explodes and each dirty shard is tossed into the air, it is there for all to see. You seek to deny it, you question the reliability and demand evidence to support the claim. Surely you are not the one to blame?